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A Proclamation of Jihad Called Direct Action | General | History
- The Muslim League, after refusing to accept the plan of the Cabinet Mission decided to press forward its agenda by taking recourse to violence. In a meeting of the Supreme Council of Muslim League held on July 29, 1946, at Bombay a decision was taken to observe August 16, 1946, as the "Direct Action Day" in Calcutta (present day Kolkata) for carving out the Muslim State of Pakistan. That was exactly one year prior to the partition of India. Immediately after the announcement at Bombay, it was clear that the Muslim League was busy drawing up a well planned strategy for waging a regular jihad, as ordained in Islamic scriptures, against the somnolent Hindu society beginning with the Direct Action Day which plunged Calcutta into massive bloodshed.
- A highly provocative leaflet bearing the title "Manifesto" was distributed calling upon all Muslims to reach out to the people of their "illaqa, mohalla, in mosques, in schools, colleges, clubs, tea-stalls and hotels" and asking them to "awake, arise, and unite under the banner of Muslim League and make the hartal a success".
- It was evident that the Muslim mobsters, duly chaperoned by the Muslim League and with the approval of the Government of Bengal (headed by H.S. Suhrawardy) had made extensive preparations for large scale rioting and attacks on Hindus, as subsequent events revealed. As the Minister in charge of maintenance of law and order, Suhrawardy, had cleverly transferred most of the Hindu police officers from key executive posts. Although Calcutta was a Hindu majority city, the Muslim officers were given charge of as many as 22 Police Stations out of a total of 24 Police Stations, the remaining 2 Thanas being under the charge of 2 Anglo-Indian officers. Before the Direct Action Day, hundreds of bad characters, who had been in detention since the days of World War II, were released by the State government. Despite an open call given to Muslim League for waging jihad against Hindus, neither the peace preaching Congress Party, led by Gandhi Ji and Pandit Nehru, nor any organization of the pacifism-doped Hindu society, had the vision to foresee the impending communal carnage.
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Page 2 | A Proclamation of Jihad Called Direct Action | General | History
- In the morning of August 16, 1946, several groups of Muslim League goons, armed with daggers, iron rods, long spears, lathis and some even armed with guns roamed the streets of Calcutta, attacking Hindus, their shops and business establishments. Shops were broken open, looted and vehicular traffic forcibly disrupted. The mobs specially targeted the Sikh taxi drivers and beat up innocent passengers. Within a few hours large parts of the city, especially the areas inhabited by Hindus were burning, while the police looked the other way. Hundreds of innocent persons were killed, but the city police neither tried to prevent the large scale murders and looting nor was the army called out to control the incessant rioting indulged in by Muslim League's storm troopers! Mass butchery, looting and arson gathered more speed on the next day. On the third day the beleaguered Hindus and the Sikh taxi drivers galvanized themselves into the mould of fighters in a bid to defend themselves. With Sikh taxi drivers giving the lead, the Hindus started hitting back thence onward. Only when the retaliatory attacks started hurting the Muslims, did the Suhrawardy government called in the army. Ultimately by August 27, 1946, i.e., 13 days after the commencement of jihad, involving mass butchery and mayhem, the situation could be brought to a semblance of near normalcy.
- According to a rough estimate given by Justice Gopal Das Khosla (a former High Court Judge), in his well researched and insightful narrative, The Stern Reckoning, a total number of 3,173 dead bodies were recovered and disposed off. The actual number of persons killed was much larger - some contemporary residents of Calcutta put the figure at 10,000. Many innocents had been burnt alive in their houses, shops and hutments, while scores of bodies had been thrown into Hooghly river and thus washed down to the sea.
- The ghastly Calcutta killings set the tone for subsequent outbreaks of large scale Hindu-Muslim riots in several parts of the country, especially in the Punjab and North Western Province where heavy casualties were suffered by Hindus and Sikhs. Communal clashes continued to erupt in various areas, especially those sought to be included in Pakistan, with unabated fury till the date of the partition and even thereafter. In the riots that followed millions were rendered homeless and unspeakable barbarities were committed, especially on Hindu and Sikh women. There were innumerable massacres in Punjab and North Western Frontier Province and later on in East Bengal, too. Muslims also suffered due to retaliation, largely by Sikhs of East Punjab, but significantly far less than Hindus and Sikhs, as is evident from the fact that Hindus and Sikhs have been ethnically cleansed from almost entire Pakistan and in later decades from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
- Of late, there have been attempts by the communists and self-styled secularists to avoid discussing the nightmare of partition. The reason advanced by the sham-secular cabal is that a detailed analysis of the holocaust of partition will revive the religious animosity between the two communities. As a consequence of the attempt to suppress the truth, there has been a calculated attempt to ensure that the bloodbath of partition is erased from the memory lane of Hindus and Sikhs so that the future generations remain oblivious of the lessons which it ought to be learnt from the recent past. Though the bloodbath of partition sometime appears to fade from the public memory, as the leftists would like one to believe, the masses have persistently refused to forget it. In a way, the partition and the accompanying blood-letting and horrendous atrocities have come to be regarded as a defining chapter of modern Indian history - much to the chagrin of the ‘secularists'.
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Page 3 | A Proclamation of Jihad Called Direct Action | General | History
- During the call for "Direct Action" on 16th August 1946 members of the Volunteer Corps, organized by Muslim League, also participated. But the most dangerous outfit was its secret militant wing, the Muslim National Guards, which though claiming to be overtly independent, had its flag similar to that of Muslim League. This outfit took active part in violence and riots. The membership of the Muslim National Guards was kept as a closely guarded secret. They had their own headquarters and training centres. These organs of the Muslim League were militarily trained in stabbing, fighting, rioting and other kinds of physical assaults. The police, which was predominantly Muslim in many parts of the Muslim majority provinces openly connived with the perpetrators of violence. Weapons like sword, knives, spears and daggers were stocked in large quantities along with incendiary materials like petrol and kerosene. A well-planned strategy had been chalked out to partition the country even by employing non-constitutional means to push the entire sub-continent into a civil war.
- Meticulous planning for killing Hindus and Sikhs and finally their ethnic cleansing from both wings of Pakistan was clearly evident in many speeches of the Muslim leaders who openly threatened of dire consequences.
- Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar, another prominent leader and a member of the first Pakistan government said, "Pakistan can only be achieved by shedding blood of ourselves, and if need be, and if opportunity arose, by shedding blood of others. Muslims are no believers in Ahimsa". The foregoing statement of Abdur Rab Nishtar showed how the Muslims openly mocked at the doped Congress leadership as well as at the Hindu society which had been emasculated by repetitive doses of pacifist dogma. Yet the Congress leadership, including Gandhiji and Pandit Nehru, did not wake up, nor did they make any plans to protect the Hindus and Sikhs, even after the ghastly experience of the great Calcutta killings. Such indeed was their foolish faith in the power of Ahimsa and pacifism!
- No wonder, the call for Direct Action on 16th August 1946 ignited the violence for which meticulous preparations had been made in advance by the League. The Suhrawardy government in Bengal declared 16th August 1946 as public holiday to observe the Direct Action day. It was mainly a call for Jihad against Hindus by Muslim League leadership through indoctrination of Muslim masses into Jihadi ideology.
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